What If It Hadn't Made the News?
I've spent the last few days working in my yard and helping my father renovate the house he bought in the village. During this time, I barely gave any thought to the birdemic, or the 2020 global coup, or the peck, or any other Satanic evil. Yes, my father talked about these things a little here and there as we knocked out walls and gutted his kitchen, but we spent far more time speaking about other, better things.
Today just before sunset I spent about an hour watering the vegetable garden, fruit trees, and rose bushes on my property. The cuckoo who frequents the poplars by the old mill near my house filled the air with his calls. The blackbird who usually perches in my plum tree followed me around the yard, opportunistically hopping around in search of worms and grubs in the spots I had already watered. Laying upon a pile of old roof tiles on the opposite side of the garden, my cat eagerly eyed the blackbird, but was too comfortable and lazy to give it chase.
As I watched the sun sink toward the horizon, I found myself wondering how different the world would be if the birdemic had never made the news. I came to the swift conclusion that most people probably would not have noticed anything strange or different about their lives. I certainly wouldn't have because if the birdemic had not made the news there would have been nothing strange or different about my life.
Before the birdemic broke in Hungary, I described the "irrational hysteria" taking hold of the West as a "non-crisis crisis" and a "crisis that shouldn't be crisis" and even went as far as to say that the whole thing shouldn't have even made the news.
More than a year later, I stand by that remark. Based on the statistics I've followed and the experiences I have gathered living through sixteen months of a seemingly endless "crisis", the birdemic never should have made the news. Full stop.
But the birdemic did make the news. Not only did it make the news, but it has been the news for well over a year now, which brings me to the conclusion that the news is all the birdemic ever was, and news is all it will ever be.
There is no birdemic without the news - only cuckoos, blackbirds, lazy cats, gardens overgrown with weeds, and sunsets that melt into the horizon like butter.
Those things are still there. They have always been there. And they don't need the news to make them real or give them life.
Today just before sunset I spent about an hour watering the vegetable garden, fruit trees, and rose bushes on my property. The cuckoo who frequents the poplars by the old mill near my house filled the air with his calls. The blackbird who usually perches in my plum tree followed me around the yard, opportunistically hopping around in search of worms and grubs in the spots I had already watered. Laying upon a pile of old roof tiles on the opposite side of the garden, my cat eagerly eyed the blackbird, but was too comfortable and lazy to give it chase.
As I watched the sun sink toward the horizon, I found myself wondering how different the world would be if the birdemic had never made the news. I came to the swift conclusion that most people probably would not have noticed anything strange or different about their lives. I certainly wouldn't have because if the birdemic had not made the news there would have been nothing strange or different about my life.
Before the birdemic broke in Hungary, I described the "irrational hysteria" taking hold of the West as a "non-crisis crisis" and a "crisis that shouldn't be crisis" and even went as far as to say that the whole thing shouldn't have even made the news.
More than a year later, I stand by that remark. Based on the statistics I've followed and the experiences I have gathered living through sixteen months of a seemingly endless "crisis", the birdemic never should have made the news. Full stop.
But the birdemic did make the news. Not only did it make the news, but it has been the news for well over a year now, which brings me to the conclusion that the news is all the birdemic ever was, and news is all it will ever be.
There is no birdemic without the news - only cuckoos, blackbirds, lazy cats, gardens overgrown with weeds, and sunsets that melt into the horizon like butter.
Those things are still there. They have always been there. And they don't need the news to make them real or give them life.
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